Agencies

GAZA CITY, 13 January 2004 — Armed clashes broke out in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday after Israeli tanks entered a refugee camp and demolished at least two houses, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said. At least five tanks and two bulldozers staged an incursion some 150 meters inside the southern section of the giant Rafah refugee camp which has been the site of major clashes in recent weeks.

Security sources said that two houses had been completely destroyed while locals put the figure at five. Activists from the three major Palestinian armed factions Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades were involved in clashes with Israeli forces but there was no immediate news of any casualties, the sources said.

Meanwhile, a large Israeli armored force, backed by helicopter gunships, drove into Tulkarm yesterday and began widespread searches in the northern West Bank city, witnesses reported. They said soldiers ordered residents of the city’s refugee camp to gather in schoolyards as their homes were being combed.

The sound of shooting and explosions from what appeared to be stun grenades could be heard, they added. Two people were reported slightly wounded when they confronted the force with stones. The army also demolished a house in the town of Yatta, south of Hebron, belonging to the family of a Palestinian militant from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades wanted by Israel.

Bulldozers razed Mahmud Nawjaah’s house in Yatta as a search by the army for his brother Issa Nawjaah continued. Soldiers fired at the house and then ordered the eight family members to leave before the bulldozers moved in, the witnesses said.

It was not immediately known if Issa Nawjaah, a member of the mainstream Fatah movement, was inside the house. There was no comment from the army.